Deep Blue (A Doc Ford Novel)

White is a great story teller, keeping it real with his extensive location and FL history knowledge well incorporated into every story. Doc Ford is a complicated character, at once low key and still as exciting as a secret agent can get. His adventures keep me turning the pages until late a t night. The Dinkin's Bay Marina crowd continue to provide their own brand of exciting and interesting twists and turns to add to the plot. I highly recommend this book!

I have read every Doc Ford written and since we vacation on Sanibel they are fun to read. The Doc Ford restaurant in Ft. Myers Beach is a favorite of ours and there is nothing better than their Yuchatan shrimp! I always enjoy the books and feel relieved when Doc eventually returns to the solace of Dinkins Bay. However, Thomlinson knows his secret now so it will be interesting to see how the next novel will evolve. I like the action in this novel and the detail the author uses about the ocean, flora and fauna of this particular area of Florida. I can't wait for the next one. The reason I didn't give this book a 5 is that Doc seems so aloof and he doesnt respond positively to his friends and especially Thomlinson who always seem to worry about his safety and well-being. He seemed so alone at the end of this novel and I thought he needed to thank his friend and be a little more happy that they lived through this adventure!!

I have read everything RWW has written with Doc Ford and this one does not disappoint either. A tad out there in places but then thats what Doc and crew create. The worst part about this book is that I finished it too quickly. I do have to say that I just completed reading a series of books by another author who locates his main character in Southwest Florida for a good portion of the book's progression and that series, while really intriguing in parts was so far out of anything close to reality that I could never get into them, even though I really tried. Looking forward to the next great read from RWW.

As I read this book, I kept having to go backwards to see if I might have skipped a chapter. Don’t get me wrong, the story is decent: alter ego Doc taking out an international terrorist team and getting a little help from his friends. But there seems to be very little character, relationship, or location development. Things seem to happen with no explanation - as if multiple [very] short stories were pasted together to loosely form a novel. Honestly, it reads like one of Tomlinson’s stoned out fever dreams. I’ve enjoyed all of the Doc Ford novels up to and including this one. Deep Blue is absolutely the poorest written.

It was good to get back to Doc Ford country. I hadn't been there in a while. In fact, I had almost forgotten how good it feels spending time with Doc and Tomlinson. It was like rediscovering and rekindling an old friendship. The story itself kept me guessing. I didn't know what would happen, and I was torn between wanting to find out, and the reality that once that last page was turned, my reunion was over. Now it's time to get back to a much more boring life away from Dinkin's Bay. Maybe I could revisit Sanibel Flats or Captiva. Maybe North of Havana or Ten Thousand islands. They're just over there on my bookshelf along side The Man Who Invented Florida, an An American Traveler and more.

"Deep Blue", Randy Wayne White's latest Doc Ford novel reflects a different writing approach by White that seems to polarize a lot of his readers. I have been quick to complain that recent Doc Ford novels have not been up to the standards set in his earlier works and lamented that the recent efforts have devolved into extended character studies of Doc and Tomlinson. But in many ways, "Deep Blue" is a return to what drew me to the Doc Ford novels in the first place--more action, more suspense, and more of the "darker" side of Doc. Ford is a marine biologist living on Sanibel Island in Florida who is a former black ops assassin who still does occasional "wet work" for the government. While in Mexico to eliminate an ISIS accomplice who beheads prisoners, thing go wrong and his mission is compromised. Worse, when Doc returns home to his tiny community in Dinkin's Bay, he discovers he has acquired a powerful new enemy who is brilliant, super wealthy, and able to utilize modern high tech devices to exert his will over people and communities. Not only is Doc's life at stake but also those of everyone who associates with him. Doc is forced to return to Mexico to complete his assignment while staying one step ahead of his unseen enemy who seems able to follow and predict every step Doc takes. White employs a different stylistic approach to "Deep Blue" including extensive use of different POV's and shorter more linear chapter sequences. My only quibbles concern several unaddressed loose threads such as all the attention paid to the genetics of Doc's dog (which goes nowhere) and the sudden and deeper interest in Mack, the owner of Dinkin's Bay Marina, that also goes nowhere--at least in this novel; perhaps these were teasers that will be in play in Doc's next adventure which was set up by the ending of "Deep Blue".

Could be the best Doc Ford book to date. It's style is different from all the others. Not much of the drawn out introspective thinking and painting of background. The plot advances every chapter. The chapters and sections are shorter. And most of all, White tells the story from many different viewpoints, mostly the good guys of Dinkin's Bay---which is so unlike his other Doc Ford novels. Additionally, we learn a lot more about many of the marina's inhabitants we've known for all these years. Lately, his books have appeared to drag in the middle; not so this story. To avoid a spoiler, I'll simply say DEEP BLUE feeds into the next book in the series which, hopefully, he'll publish sooner rather than later.

I just love reading the adventures of Doc Ford and I hope there are many more to come!

CARL RAMM WAS BETTER